Entangled Paths
by Aespren
Summary: One way or another they had both ended up at the same place. Chapter Three: Jean realizes that not everyone was as well off as he was. One-Shot Collection.
1. Butthurt

_ShanaRay requested: Jean falls off his horse while 3DMG training with Armin? It's the first time it's happened in front of Armin and while he was trying to show off.  
_

* * *

Armin wasn't sure what maneuver Jean had been trying to pull off, but it definitely wasn't one they had been taught.

The newest Survey Corps members had been brought to the stables to learn tactical maneuvers for using their 3DMG while on horseback. During training it had been restricted to purely theory, as the time and resources to have an entire training corps prepare and learn the proper way to use 3DMG on horses was deemed unnecessary, considering the bulk of the class would end up in the Garrison with no access to the animals.

So for the last two hours the group had been taught and ordered to practice methods of launching themselves off of their horses. Needless to say, Jean had excelled in the practice as he did with anything related to their gear. So why he had ended up somersaulting in midair was a mystery.

Armin grimaced as he saw the green blur fall to the ground with an audible 'thwump,' followed by an even louder obscenity. The horse that Jean had specifically picked out that morning kept on running, apparently holding no interest in going over to the figure that lay slumped on the ground.

So Armin took it upon himself to do it.

"Hey Jean, you alright?" Armin yelled as he strode over, careful to make his horse stop a long while before he reached the destination. He was, as he had expected, the worst when it came to this exercise. In training he had been one of the bottom few when it came to the physical aspects, but there had still been those who fell behind even him. However, every new member of the Survey Corps except for him and Ymir were part of the top ten, leaving absolutely no competition for last place.

Armin jumped off his horse and ran over to the brunet that was now rubbing his head.

"Jean?"

The named boy groaned, and extended his hand upward towards Armin. The blond stared at it for a moment, before realizing that Jean was expecting him to pull him up. Clasping the hand in front of him he yanked upwards, unsure if he'd be strong enough to pull him up otherwise.

"Ack, geeze, Armin. My ass hurts enough already, I don't need my arm hurting too." Jean wiped the dirt off of said area.

"Sorry."

"I can't believe I messed that up," he commented, kicking his boots into the dirt ground in a vain attempt to clear the smudges off.

"What were you even trying to do?"

"You know... just what they taught us."

That was nothing close to what they had been taught, and if the resurfacing of Jean's blush was anything to go by then he knew it too.

Regardless, the blond didn't press the issue. He knew all-too-well the physical and emotional humiliation that came with every tumble.

"It's okay Jean, I fall off my horse all the time." He said, though he knew that coming from him the words couldn't be all that comforting.

"How do you keep doing this?"

"Huh?"

"I've only fallen off once and I already want to stop. How are you not hurting? You've fallen like three times today."

In truth, Armin was hurting all over. His feet, his ankles, his knees, elbows. Even, like Jean had said, his ass. But he'd dealt with a lot worse pain during training, and he'd learned a long time ago, even as a child, that the world was full of pain. You just kept on going.

But he didn't tell Jean any of that. "You'll feel better soon, just keep going," he lied.

Jean nodded. His horse had finally decided to return to him, and he hopped back on without a word. The only sign that the scene had even happened was red that still lived on his cheeks.

After that, things continued as if nothing had happened. Jean didn't stumble on his horse even once; pulling off every maneuver with perfect precision.

Armin, however, fell off for the fourth time that day. He lay on the ground, cloak draped over his face. He could spare lying here for a few seconds longer than usual, just to let his eyes rest. The cloth provided nice shade.

"Hey, Armin! You alright?"

Armin scrambled to get the cloak off his face, eager to get up before the other would reach him and undoubtedly offer help that he didn't want. He didn't want Jean to think that he was unable to get up on his own; to think that on top of being incapable of performing their tasks that he couldn't even fix his own mistakes.

The green cloak finally flung itself out his way, and the first sight in Armin's eyes was Jean's smirking face. The brunet latched onto the arm that hung awkwardly in the air, raising the shorter one onto his feet before he could object.

"That one looked like it hurt a lot."

"No, it wasn't that bad."

"That's a lie if I've ever heard one."

Armin bit his lip.

"Come on, there's no way you're not hurting after that fall. My ass _still_ hurts."

Armin looked up at Jean, who seemed to be more worried that he _wasn't_ hurt.

"Alright, maybe it hurts a little bit," he admitted.

Jean smiled. "I knew it! After this, you and me should go back to the dorms early! We can steal some of the better pillows while people aren't there, and relax!"

Armin wondered if Jean really just wanted to do this because his butt still hurt, or because he was butthurt that Eren had alledgedly stolen his pillow last week while he took a shower.

Armin considered the option. He wasn't exactly comfortable with making others annoyed with him, but he supposed he could just tell Eren that he took it for himself...

More than that though, Jean wanted to do this with _him_. The idea of anyone, let alone Jean, wanting to spend time with him was temptation enough.

"Okay!"

"Yeah, that's more like it!" Jean smiled.

Perhaps getting hurt wasn't so bad after all.

* * *

_Thanks for reading this far, reviews are much appreciated!_


	2. Don't Trust Me

_Post-Chapter 59, after the scene in the stables. Prompt from melonpanparade. Jearmin + "Don't Trust Me."_

* * *

"Do you regret what you did?"

Armin had been asking himself that question the entire day, but this was the first time that he had heard it from someone else's lips. Jean and him were alone now, or as alone as they could be in a single-room barn. Mikasa was no longer there to comfort him, nor was Levi there to fix the conversation when his mouth betrayed his concerns. Now it was just him and Jean, and the mess of thoughts he called his mind.

_'You're a horrible person'_ and '_you had no other choice' _jumped back and forth, as if competing how many times they could be said before he went insane. In the end the only comforting thing he had to tell himself was that Jean was alive.

_But that woman isn't._

Armin felt his stomach swirl again.

He looked over at his comrade, who sat on the other side of the stall where they had taken to hiding out for the last hour. The fire had been put out hours ago, leaving the only source of light to be the cracks between the boards in the roof where the moonlight shone through just enough to make out shapes.

So while Armin could barely see Jean, he knew he was there, and he let that knowledge comfort himself

He had saved Jean. That was what mattered. There was no switching sides in the middle of a battle, not when the enemy has a gun pointed at a person you care about. He just had to keep telling himself that. It didn't matter if she was a good person or not, he would never find out.

Perhaps she had family, or friends who cared about her. Maybe she had a lover, even children. He might have destroyed more than just one life today. But he didn't know. He would never know. There was only one thing that he did know right now: that Jean couldn't hear any of this.

"No."

He tried his best to make his voice firm, but he could feel his whole body shaking again and it was impossible that the word hadn't been affected.

He took a deep breath in through his nose, letting the foul smell of the horses and uncleaned stalls comfort him. He let it steal his thoughts away. If the smell was this strong, then that meant that Levi must be sleeping. He'd killed people too, and he was able to fall asleep. Levi was a good person, even if he was rough around the edges. Armin didn't hate him, so he shouldn't hate himself.

He tried not to let the fact that he didn't believe in good people bother him.

"Armin..." Jean started, letting the name drift off before continuing. It gave the boy time to bring himself back to reality. "If you were in my situation, would you have done it?"

The boy bit his lip. The only way he had come to terms with what he had done had been by telling himself that Jean's life was in danger, and even then he still hadn't accepted it. Jean's life had value to him, more than his own. Killing to protect himself was selfish.

If it had been his own life in danger, just what would he have done?

No, he already knew the answer...

When his teammates had died in front of him in Trost he had just let himself be picked up...

When the female titan had stood before him he'd let her reach down at him to grab his hood...

When the woman had pointed her gun at him he had just flinched...

And then there were the times with Jean, where both their lives had been in danger.

When Annie was about to grab Jean by the wire, and he had screamed till he thought his throat was going to bleed as much as his head...

When he had dragged Jean's limp body back from a titan, with only a single blade extended to protect them, even though he knew it was pointless...

When he had shot the woman after she had pointed her gun at Jean...

All of those were his answer.

If it had been just his life in danger, then he wouldn't have... He would have never been able to... There was no way he could have...

"Yes." He choked the word out.

Armin couldn't see Jean's eyes in the dimness of the stable, but he felt them. They must be staring through him, boring through the lie.

Armin heard the deep breath that came out of Jean's mouth; thought he felt it on his shoulder even though they weren't even that close.

"But what if she didn't shoot. What if she wasn't going-"

"No." This time there was no waver in his voice.

He didn't have Levi to back him up right now, to fix the conversation for him, to assure his own mind as well as Jean's. But he knew what he had to say. He had to make Jean believe that what he did was right, so he could protect his own life when the time came.

"She made a mistake. She got scared, and she froze. It's what humans do. Fear takes a hold of us and we freeze, but then we do what we have to do to survive. She would have shot you." _Maybe not._

A deep breath.

"We couldn't trust her. She was our enemy, we couldn't trust her." _She might have been our ally._

"We divide the world into black and white, and we kill those that aren't on our side. We've been betrayed multiple times by people who called themselves our allies." _Maybe we're the traitors._

No response, only an exhale of breath.

Armin did the same.

"You're right," Jean finally said, "You and Levi are both right. We couldn't trust any of them. The only people we can trust are ourselves."

"Right." _No we can't._

"I know I said it before, but I won't mess up next time. I know what to do now. I trust that what you did was right."

Armin heard the shuffling of feet, indicating the end of this conversation, and when Jean stood up he could just make his face out for a moment from the stripes of moonlight that came through the rooftop. It was a face of forced determination, or at least that's what Armin saw.

He left, likely to go find a stall of his own to sleep in; somewhere away from the person who had saved his life and scarred his humanity.

_'I trust what you did was right.'_

Armin leant his head back up against the wall, looking up to see the faint bit of sky that crept through the wood.

"Don't trust me..."

* * *

_I wanted to write something serious for this chapter for a long while, but never got around to it when it first came out. I wanted to show Armin and Jean speaking to each other, where Armin is strong around Jean for his own safety. Because he knows if he falters around him then Jean will doubt his actions and might not shoot next time even if he is in danger again._

_Armin just wants to carry the burden on his own, as usual._


	3. Privilege

_Wrote this for an anon prompt on tumblr: "Jean realizing the contrast between his cosy, privileged childhood while Armin had to work the fields after the fall of Shinganshina and cope with hunger, cold etc."_

_I loved the prompt a lot. So, as usual, this ended up a lot longer than I intended._

* * *

Jean was used to having his sleep interrupted. Being in the Survey Corps didn't allow for a lot of rest, especially when you had three superiors with no understanding of the words 'calm down', two comrades that were constantly being kidnapped, and an entire race as your enemy.

However, the last thing that Jean had expected to wake up to was Armin telling him that he had an urgent package delivery from his mother.

Now that the package sat in his hand, he wasn't sure exactly what he was supposed to do with it. Urgent usually meant that something was wrong, or would be wrong if it didn't get here on time. What if she didn't have enough money to keep buying food? Or what if she had hurt herself by carrying too many groceries? What if she had died?

Well then she probably wouldn't be sending a package...

"Jean, are you okay?" Armin asked. He still stood in the room, too curious too leave but not bold enough to ask to see what's in it.

"Yeah."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No, it's fine. Stay." It might not be fine, but having Armin here helped him to think otherwise. Bad news was supposed to come when you were alone and fragile, not with people you cared about. Not that his previous experiences had held true to that...

He pulled the lid off.

"What is it?" Armin asked, even though he could have easily looked into the box himself.

"It's..." Jean paused, staring into the small container. He laughed. Just how had his mom managed to accomplish this? "It's my mom's cooking. My favourite meal."

"Food?" Armin leaned over now, staring into the box. "How is it so fresh? There's no way they would deliver it that quickly."

He wasn't exactly sure how his mom had managed to convince the Corps to deliver the package. One thing they had been told upon first entering the Survey Corps was that there was no receiving mail from civilians. When Jean had questioned it, Armin had said it was probably because they were constantly moving, or that they didn't expect the majority of the soldiers to be alive long enough to receive it.

Leave it to his mom to accomplish the impossible.

"Well, that's my mom for you. If she wants something done it will happen."

"Your mom sounds amazing," Armin commented.

As annoying as her nagging could get, there was no way Jean could disagree with the description.

"She is, and she's just as good a cook." Jean picked up the spoon that sat in the container. He smiled slightly, imagining what was going through her mind when she packed it. She probably thought he ate all his meals with his hands or something. Though, if he was being honest with himself, he wasn't ready to get out of bed yet and he probably would have resorted to eating it with his hands over risking going downstairs and having others ask for a taste. Sasha had been trying to get a hold of his mom's cooking ever since she had lost to it in the cook-off back in their trainee days.

Jean raised the spoon to his mouth, stopping only when he noticed that there was still one other person in the room with him. So he hadn't exactly avoided everyone...

"Here." He extended the utensil out to Armin.

Armin blinked. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

If it had been Eren then there was no doubt in his mind that he would hear 'because you're a selfish asshat.' But this was Armin, the one too polite to even ask for a taste even though he'd been staring.

"Well it's yours, and you said it's your favourite meal."

"Yeah, which means I've had it a ton of times before."

That was all the prompting Armin needed. He leaned forward hesitantly, opening his mouth so slowly that Jean thought he was trying to imitate the gates of Wall Rose. He'd said it was okay, hadn't he?

Jean shoved the spoon forward, cramming it into the other's mouth before his arm fell numb from having been held there so long.

Armin made a choked sound, coughing slightly after Jean pulled the spoon out.

Armin didn't say anything, but the shocked face that he made was enough to force Jean to hold back a laugh.

"That's amazing," was the verdict he gave after he had finally swallowed.

"Told you."

"I can't believe she got this delivered here as an urgent package."

"Well that's my mom for you. Besides, last time I talked to her I told her that we wouldn't be back for a long time. So she had to deliver it before we left. It's the last time I'll get to eat it for a while."

"Oh... And I ate part of it. Sorry."

"Don't be. It's not like I haven't had to go without before. When Wall Maria fell food prices skyrocketed. We couldn't afford eggs, or tomatoes. They said there wasn't enough because of all the refugees. We ate potatoes for almost two months, it was horrible," Jean complained, recalling the memory.

He remembered how he had heard the adults at the market talking, saying how unfair it was that they had to pay so much for vegetables when the refugees got to live on the farms and steal as much as they wanted. The government already pays for their food anyway was a phrase he had heard more than once.

He had been outraged by the rumour as a child, consumed by the selfish thought that they had inconvenienced him. Even though his mom had told him more than once that they had to share, he was still angry at them. His family had barely gotten by, and the people who had invaded their land could get whatever they wanted and they didn't even pay for it.

He knew better now though. He knew that the refugees had it far worse than he did, regardless of how much food he was getting. He still had his home, and his mom. But that didn't mean that he still didn't feel a bit bitter.

So he didn't understand why he felt so compelled to ask. Perhaps it was just his way of seeing if any of his actions as a child were justified. He'd been wrong about so many things, and changed his mind on so many more. He just had to know if he had been right or not.

"Hey... Armin. Can I ask you a sensitive question?"

"What is it?"

"The adults that worked on the farms... Did they ever steal food?"

The silence that followed was brief, but it was enough for Jean to pick up on. "No."

He'd been stupid. What had convinced him that it was a good idea to ask this? He hadn't even thought it through all the way. Armin, Eren, Mikasa... All of them had lost their family when the wall had fallen. How would Armin even know?

"I'm sorry, Armin. I didn't mean to sound accusatory or anything. I mean, you probably wouldn't even know. None of you guys had any parents left to work the fields." Shit. He was messing this up even more now. Just apologize for everything, apologize for this conversation.

"There were no adults working the fields," Armin said. "At least not after the first month."

"But then that means the farm workers were..."

"The kids."

Armin didn't say any names, but he didn't need to. Jean already knew who it included.

"And to answer your question," Armin continued, though Jean wanted to tell him to stop. He had only been asking out of curiousity, he hadn't meant to bring up this. "Yes, we did steal food sometimes. Eren tried a few times, but after his second time getting caught they threatened to send him outside the walls too. And even though we knew it was a bluff we got scared anyway. So after that Mikasa did all the stealing, but only when she got the chance."

Armin paused. "I was always too tired after the work to even walk home, let alone run away if I got caught. So I never tried."

Jean wasn't sure how to reply. He'd had no idea that was how the farms were run.

When he was eleven he had been running around with other kids his age, picking up sticks and pretending they were Military Police members. They'd run around and hit each other, and laugh when the other got hurt.

Meanwhile Armin and Eren and Mikasa had been working on the fields, growing food for others to eat. So that he could eat. The food he had had on his plate every night... Was it possible they had been the ones to grow it?

The thought disgusted him; made him disgusted with himself that he had ever complained about it.

"I'm sorry." It was the only thing he could think of to say.

"Don't apologize. You did nothing wrong."

Maybe not out loud, but he'd been doing it in his head; making assumptions of what life was like for others.

"It's only human to get annoyed when your daily life changes," Armin started. "As a kid I got upset when Eren's dad started taking him on his doctor's visits with him, even though I knew it was important for Eren to learn. So I'd go there everyday and ask if Eren could play when I knew he wasn't home. I just wanted to show Carla that I was annoyed."

Jean tried to imagine what Armin would act like when he was annoyed, let alone as a little kid. The thought was impossible.

"Did it work?"

"No, I did it so much that Carla thought I was lonely. So she invited me inside and started teaching me sewing," Armin confessed, his face flushing red slightly as he said it. "Hey, don't laugh!"

He couldn't help it. Now that was something he could picture.

The conversation had returned back to something he could handle, but he still wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. He looked down at the meal in his lap, which was quickly getting colder. Maybe... "Hey, Armin-"

"Hey, Armin!" Connie shot up the stairs, out of breath. "You said you were going to be quick! Levi's coming, you have to get back to your post."

Armin's eyes widened.

Connie disappeared back down the stairs.

It was only now that Jean noticed that they were both in uniform. Why was Armin even up here if he was supposed to be on watch? Jean looked back down at his meal. Of course, Armin had taken the 'urgent' part seriously.

"Sorry, Jean, I have to go."

"Hey Armin, wait," Jean called out.

Armin stopped, foot halfway down the first step.

"Want another bite?"

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_Thank you for reading. Comments are greatly appreciated._


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